Clunk clunk clunk

[04WranglerX]

Goes my jeep yesterday. Sounded like a ujoint in the driveshaft, so this morning I pulled the rear shaft and drove around in 4hi. Mint, no clunking.

Wobble the ujoints around, one that connect to the rearend yoke was grindy, went to napa, got a new one and popped it in. Put the shaft back on annnnnd, same noise. wtf. Pulled the shaft again and playing with the other u joints they seem fine. Only thing i'm thinking is that little ball inbetween the other two u joints is worn or something? It's like that part of the driveshaft is binding up on itself.

It's a tom woods CV shaft, looks like this.



Any idea's?

[1cleantj]

if the u-joints look good, how does the splined section feel ? tight ? could be the centering ball like you think, there a pain to change though

[iant333]

Centering ball isnt hard to change at all, no harder than the U-Joints anyways. Mine made a similar sound when it went bad too.

My front shaft also made a clinking sound for a while once until I realized the splined section was way worn out and I had to junk the whole shaft. This sounded kinda like something jingling/grinding though.

[H8PVMT]

rear pinion bearing loose? the one in my 30 is shot and that's what it did, been 2wd since (2 years)